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The Daily Grind: Have you made use of an advanced character in an MMO?
World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion launched yesterday, and if you managed to preorder in time, you now have a shiny new level 90 character upgrade awaiting you. WoW isn't the first or only game to offer advanced characters, of course; RIFT, EverQuest II, and Ultima Online, among others, all sell boosted characters so that players can skip over the early game and jump right to the new stuff. This feature has been tremendously helpful to some of my guildies who haven't played WoW in a while and wanted to join us in the new content without catching up an old toon. Without the feature, I'm not sure some of them would have returned at all. I've taken advantage of the feature in UO especially to avoid the tedium of skill grind. On the other hand, I've still never had the urge to seriously play the cute Gnome Mage I rolled the last time Blizzard offered free character boosts. I just have too many characters with history already (plus my husband mains a Gnome Mage!). What about you, Massively readers? Have you ever made use of an advanced character in an MMO? What did you think of the experience? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Would you buy an advanced character?
For many years, Ultima Online has offered an advanced character microtransaction. Well, the term "microtransaction" may be stretching it -- originally priced at $30 a pop, it's more like a macrotransaction. The advanced character token allows you to boost the skills and stats of a single character according to a preset template. It won't give you a capped Bard, Treasure Hunter, or Animal Tamer overnight, but it will get you a big chunk of the way there. And for skills that are notoriously hard to train .1 by .1 all the way to 100 or 120, advanced character tokens can be a huge boon to players who've been there and done that and just want to skip the early grind. UO's not alone in this; other games, such as Dark Age of Camelot, allow players to jump past some of the early game on their alts once they've capped a toon and proven they know the ropes of the game. Of course, those games aren't charging for the pleasure. So what do you think: Would you buy an advanced character from a game company? Or do you think you're cheating yourself and those around you by not grinding up the old-fashioned way? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
